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Jamal CollierESPN
CHICAGO — After getting off to a slow start this season following arthroscopic surgery on his left knee over the summer, Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine has started feeling like himself again recently.
He scored a season-high 43 points on 15-of-20 shooting Friday night to lead the Bulls to a 132-118 victory over the Detroit Pistons, the latest and most emphatic sign for Chicago of LaVine’s improved health.
“Go look at my last 10, 15 games,” LaVine said after the game. “I been feeling good.”
In 14 games during December, LaVine is averaging 25.2 points on 53% shooting and 43.2% from 3.
It’s a step up from LaVine’s production to start the season, when he averaged 20.9 points on 40.7% shooting and 34.8% from 3 in 17 games during October/November.
Knee injury management kept LaVine sidelined for the first two games of the season, and he missed three of the first six games while the team rested him on back-to-backs, but he has not missed a game since Nov. 6 and said he expects to play Saturday in the second half of Chicago’s back-to-back against Cleveland.
“I do everything I can to play each and every day,” LaVine said. “Do my rest and recovery, see how I feel [Saturday], but right now I feel pretty good.”
On Friday, LaVine continued to put pressure on the rim all game against the Pistons, finishing a perfect 7-for-7 in the restricted area and converting an alley-oop with authority to end the first quarter. He also made it to the free throw line eight times and converted all eight of his attempts.
“That’s the Zach we all know,” said Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan, who finished with 22 points on Friday. “He came out, got us going early. He set the table for the rest of the game. Stayed aggressive, hit his shots, was aggressive getting downhill.”
One of the most encouraging signs for the Bulls is that LaVine is back to scoring around the rim at an elite level this month, shooting 79.5% in the restricted area so far in December — his highest in a calendar month since joining the Bulls — a stark improvement from 58.8% in October/November.
“I give him a lot of credit of just sticking with the process and just continuing to work,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “I think when you’re as elite as he is offensively and you start the year off the way he did offensively and just trying to find himself. He put a lot of work into it just to stay the course.”
LaVine’s second 40-point performance of the season follows a 42-point performance from DeRozan in a victory Wednesday night against the Milwaukee Bucks — DeRozan’s third 40-point game of the year. LaVine and DeRozan join Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland as the only teammates with multiple 40-point games each, according to research by ESPN Stats & Information.
Those performances from their stars are a big reason the Bulls have won five of their past six games and currently hold the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference despite their 16-19 record.
“Any given night, one of us can go off for a game like that,” LaVine said. “You don’t want to count on it, and offensively we’re fine every game. I think it’s defensively, when we’re all locked in and connected, we’re going to be good.”